Today’s consumers—including prospective students and their parents—don’t sit back and wait for information to come to them.

Think about it: are you more likely to hang on to and browse through fistfuls of brochures and direct-mail glossies that may or may not be offering anything of interest—or are you more likely to search online for the answers to your questions and the solution to your needs?

According to a 2013 article from the Wall Street Journal, only 29% of all students are traditional students, i.e. they are attending a four-year university full time right after high school and are living on campus. So, we can only assume as tuitions have continued to rise that percentage may be even lower today. Many colleges are finding that having more non-traditional students is helping them battle rising enrollment fees. And in the years to come, catering to these students will likely be the difference between staying open and shutting your doors.

So, how do you reach the new majority of college students? Are there different tactics you need to use to be most effective in boosting adult student enrollment?

Fall is a magical time on a college campus. Students are excited to be back and eager to start a new school year, and students and faculty alike have a fresh slate. As the heat of summer weather gives way to crisp fall temperatures, there is just a fresh sense of renewal in the air.

And with all new beginnings, fall is also a great time to take a look at your current marketing strategy, to make sure you are staying relevant. The world of inbound marketing is constantly evolving so you need to be constantly accessing and analyzing your plans just to stay current with your competitors.

At this point in the game, we all know about search engine optimization (SEO). But you may to may not know about social media optimization (SMO). As we have moved from the world-wide-web to the Internet to the internet, the amount of websites is so prolific that search engine results are just not as reliable as they used to be. Many companies are now moving towards optimizing their social media sites because many consumers find it easier to find reliable search results on Facebook, Snap Chat, Pinterest or Twitter vs. a search engine.

SMO particularly lends itself to the world of higher education, where many prospective students prefer to learn about colleges in first-hand accounts rather than from traditional advertisements.

In our last post, 5 Reasons to Love A/B Testing, we looked at five compelling reasons why A/B testing, or split testing as it is also known, can definitely help you convert your website visitors. But if you aren’t familiar with the process, it might be a little intimidating to you.

To review, A/B testing is the process of comparing two slightly different versions of the same webpage, email or social media post to see which option leads to a higher conversion rate. You only change one element at a time in order to make sure you are getting accurate results.

We’ve spent a lot of time on The Educated Marketer talking about ways to increase your web traffic and enhance your content to make your website more effective. A/B testing is the last stop on a long journey to making your website and digital marketing efforts work for you. You need A/B testing once you already have a dynamite website with lots of traffic and relevant content.

A/B testing (otherwise known as split testing) is the process of comparing two slightly different versions of the same webpage, email or social media post to see which option leads to a higher conversion rate. Remember, in order for the test to work, it’s important that when you are running an A/B test, you only change one element at a time like the call-to-action button or an email topic line.

Today’s consumers—including prospective students and their parents—don’t sit back and wait for information to come to them.

Think about it: are you more likely to hang on to and browse through fistfuls of brochures and direct-mail glossies that may or may not be offering anything of interest—or are you more likely to search online for the answers to your questions and the solution to your needs?

We all know that when it comes to social media, organic traffic—that is the traffic that comes from people clicking on a post they are truly interested in—is the most valuable kind. However, are there times when it does make sense to boost a Facebook post?

With more than one and half billion month users—65% of who use the social media platform daily—Facebook is without question a critical channel for your inbound marketing communications. And according to the
American Press Institute, 88% of millennials use Facebook to get their news.

Most Colleges and Universities have a website and online presence, but if their website isn’t usable and their content isn’t useful, websites that are designed to be helpful are defeating their purpose. Read on to find out how you can make your website relevant.

According to a 2014 Uversity Report, 97% of students have visited the website of a college they are interested in but nearly 2/3 of those students found that the experience was “just ok” or “challenging.” In addition to have trouble actually accessing the sites, only 4 in 10 students found the information and content on the college’s website to be relevant.

According to Social Times, as of March 2016, 320 million people use Twitter each month. If you’re like 87% of Americans, you know what Twitter is, but you may have no idea how to use it. It was launched 11 years ago in 2006, it can be an incredibly effective promotion tool and yet exactly how to use Twitter remains a mystery to many.

Here are some top reasons you should be using Twitter:

Ability to connect with prospective students. If your prospective students are on Twitter, you need to be too.

To brand your institution. You don’t have to be a huge university to build brand awareness on Twitter. You just need to be dedicated and tweeting regularly.

Tweets can go viral. If you’ve never had a tweet go viral, it’s hard to understand the phenomenon. But it happens, and it can happen to you.

The good news is: If you take a little bit of time to understand how Twitter works and best practices you need to follow, you will be happily tweeting and sharing your message with millions of users across the world.